# data[].attributes.headline
Progress: Submitted, adding things here and there for more depth 

# data[].attributes.subject
Progress: Submitted, adding things here and there for more depth 

# data[].attributes.body
My parents were both the first in their families to immigrate to the United States from Vietnam in the late 1980s at the ages of 19 and 20. They learned to see the world as an opportunity after leaving Vietnam. They both grew up surrounded by hardships, poverty, and war. It was through this lens that I was brought into the world.

# data[].attributes.body
Photographs from this age (unpictured) showed my ability to converse with adults in the Vietnamese language. I was raised with only the Vietnamese language in my early years and mimicked a lot of the verbiage and gestures that adults surrounding me used.

# data[].attributes.body
My uncle always reminds me of how incredibly annoying I was at this age, always following him around and asking him hundreds of questions --- all the what's and why's and how's. I had a curious mind and saw the world as a text waiting to be comprehended and understood.

# data[].attributes.body
Going to school was a difficult transition for me, mainly because I had to learn a completely new language --- one I barely had any exposure to.

# data[].attributes.body
As any other child, I loved me some good competition. Luckily for my literacy, my classmates and I had a competition going for how many Decodable Books we could read. I gained a lot of confidence through these these books. It also helped that we often had collective reading time together, where the teacher, an audio recording, or one of the students would read aloud while everyone else followed along. Before decodables, my relationship with reading and language arts was not enjoyable. I didn't see myself as a reader. I didn't identify as someone who could read hundreds of books because English was my second language, and I hadn't been exposed to any English before Kindergarten. Reading stressed me out and disengaged me. These Decodables flipped that. It made reading fun and accessible through the scaffolding of increased difficulty.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Thanks so much for viewing my Primary Phonics Decodables packet. This packet contains 30 phonics skill-based decodable books. Each book offers an opportunity for students to be immersed into a phonics skill. The book is labeled with the skill directly on the front cover. The books also include a way for students to apply the phonics skill. The back cover has the students hunt down six included skill-based words from the book. The students also write a new alternate ending to the book as part of the skill-based work on the back cover.

View a video of the books **HERE**

What is included?

- 30 (black and white) books

What skills are covered?

Book 1: Short a

Book 2: Short i

Book 3: Short u

Book 4: Short o

Book 5: Short e

Book 6: Double Ending

Book 7: Digraphs th, ch, sh

Book 8: Digraphs ph, wh

Book 9: Digraphs ck, kn, wr

Book 10: R Controlled

Book 11: L Clusters

Book 12: R Clusters

Book 13: Long/Short A

Book 14: Long/Short I

Book 15: Long Short/U

Book 16: Long/Short O

Book 17: Vowel Pairs ee/ea

Book 18: Vowel Pairs ai/ay

Book 19: Vowel Pairs oa

Book 20: Diphthongs ou/ow

Book 21: Diphthongs oo/ew

Book 22: Diphthongs oy/oi

Book 23: Long A Patterns

Book 24: Long I Patterns

Book 25: Long E Patterns

Book 26: Long U Patterns

Book 27: Long O Patterns

Book 28: Beginning S Blends

Book 29: Final Blends

Book 30: Changing y to i

A note about these books!

These books are new/in addition to the FirstiePhoncis books! They are great for adding differentiation to those books OR having additional books on hand to practice the phonics skills!

Check out these similar packets!

FirstiePhonics Curriculum

First Grade Poems

First Grade Books (Set 1)

Visit my blog Little Minds at Work

Follow me on Facebook

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Primary Phonics Decodable Books - First Grade Phonics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Thanks so much for viewing my Primary Phonics Decodables packet. This packet contains 30 phonics skill-based decodable books. Each book offers an opportunity for students to be immersed into a phonics skill. The book is labeled with the skill directly on the front cover. The books also include a w..…

# data[].attributes.body
It was during this year that I also started going to Vietnamese School on Sundays in addition to regular school on the weekdays. Here, I learned that there was a difference between the type of Vietnamese spoken at home versus the Vietnamese that you read and wrote with.

# data[].attributes.body
Magic Tree House was the first chapter book series I discovered on my own (through my teacher's class library). Back then, Chapter Books were such a cool thing. It was like the initiation for being a true readers. I went through these like nothing. When I ran out of Magic TreeHouse books to borrow from my teacher, I asked my mom to take me to Oakland's Main Library and OH MY GOODNESS. A whole new world opened up before my eyes. The amount of books in the library was like magic to me.

# data[].attributes.body
I got bored of the Magic Tree House series at some point, after reading maybe 50 of them, and I got really into Greek Mythology through the Goddess Girls Series. Greek Mythology allowed me to view literacy in a more symbolic way. I remember starting to be more descriptive in the way I spoke and wrote. I would look at the world with more awe, wondering what symbolism and stories were associated with things like.. trees, throughout time and places.

# data[].attributes.body
It was around this time that I started to really grasp the concept of the fact that I am bilingual, because I started to be "in charge" of filling out all the paperwork for school registrations for myself and my younger sister, as opposed to my mom. My mom's English is pretty good, I would say, in conversations and getting her places she needs. For paperwork, there are just non-everyday words that are complicated to work through. I think my mom started to sense that I was building literacy skills and could understand paperwork lingo, and once I completed them on behalf of her (besides the signatures), I have been relied on to do them all --- even for my younger sister, younger cousins, and even other adults in my mom's circle. I got used to speaking with customer service people over the phone, to accompanying my mom to any appointments, and just translating when I could. I saw the difference in attitudes directed towards my mom and I when speaking to people, based on how fluent-sounding we were in English, too.

# data[].attributes.body
I remember how cool I felt when I learned how to read music. It was the first time I really dove into literary skills that did not involve forming written or verbal words. I learned how to read musical sentences, how to construct musical sentences with notes and, symbols and numbers... I was stuned at how much went into the making/playing of music. It opened my world to music and its connection to the human experience. I remember constantly stopping on busy streets with musicians playing and just appreciating their conveyance of the music language.

# data[].attributes.body
I had a Facebook when Walls were still a thing. Did I lie about my age to create an account? Absolutely. My older cousin had just made one and I followed suit. I was introduced to online connecting, and it was such a concept. I made status updates about what I thought were important.

# data[].attributes.body
I started to watch a lot of South Korean dramas during this year. I was exposed to cultural literacy through these dramas, as I watched characters celebrate holidays and participate in practices and customs that I hadn't seen before in the Vietnamese or American cultures. I started to appreciate the modality of subtitles for films, as I relied on closed captioning for my understanding of the Korean language. It was cool to me how I would pick up Korean phrases and gestures just from watching the dramas. It was through Korean dramas that I better grasped the context of a global community.

# data[].attributes.body
Because of my obsession in Korean TV Shows and Entertainment, I took it upon myself to learn how to read and write the Korean Language in my free time. It is the first language I learned that was not in the form of a Romanized alphabet-- even Vietnamese (my native language) used letters. I associated lines and symbols with sounds and meanings.

# data[].attributes.body
I learned about code swiching in the 8th grade and it expanded my perspective language and interactions. I was also named Valedictorian for my middle school and wrote a speech for the first time. It was empowering to hear the echo of laughter and reactions to words that I strung together for an audience. I also sat and listened to speeches that my peers wrote --- and I teared up. In thinking about texts and emotions, the 8th grade was a period of time that I experienced the strong connection between the two.

# data[].attributes.body
In the first year of high school, I quickly learned that everything had to do with college --- doing XYZ to get a good grade to have a good transcript to get into a good college; participating in XYZ clubs and extra curriculars to look well-rounded for good colleges.

# data[].attributes.body
I joined Mock Trial during the 10th grade and learned how to craft words to be more convincing or to manipulate language to paint a picture. This "language" included the actual selection of words I spoke, the tones I used while speaking, and the body language I adopted as well. It was really fun, and I liked being the puppet master of language, to play with the understanding of language.

# data[].attributes.body
AP English: Language and Composition... It was truly the class that taught me how to bullshit essays in less than an hour & to be rewarded and praised for such work. I did learn how to analyze texts in greater depth, practicing the identification and usage of the famous triage of Pathos, Logos, and Ethos.

# data[].attributes.body
Although I had practiced writing my thoughts and about myself, I hadn't really encountered writing personal statements until I had to for College applications. I remember being so stressed, because I had to write about my life story and ambitions, not just for my own eyes like it usually is, but to strangers I'll never meet who will determine my chances of going to college. It was a struggle for me to convey my life story in a professional context as well, because it was still an application.

# data[].attributes.body
Going into university was a culture shock for me. I learned how to read the texts of social interactions, of people's culturally-informed habits, and I was able to pick up on a lot of knowledge surrounding my social interactions. I read the text of privilege, of ignorance, of comfort and discomfort in my social surroundings.

# data[].attributes.body
Literacy took the form of many mediums during COVID-19 lockdown... I read body language in public spaces to infer how comfortable someone was or wasn't with social distancing, I read the action of reposting online to see how someone felt about the social justice movements of the time, I read the emptiness of the streets as a sign of the bleak times we were in... There were many texts that I read and interpreted that were not written or spoken, and rather felt.

# data[].attributes.body
I took a class called "Culture, Language, and Education" and I discovered that multilingualism was something that was so profound in my educational experience yet something that I barely reflected on. I considered my identity as a bilingual student, and how it has shaped how I interact with other in school. I also learned about the importance of symbolism in labels that we refer to students -- i.e. at risk versus at promise students, achievement gap vs opportunity gap, English Language Learners vs Emergent Multilingual Learners...

# data[].attributes.body
Gaining experience in teaching and lesson planning, I learned about the multi modalities in which text could be presented. I experimented a lot with the modalities of text within my classroom experiences. I was also a research assistant this year, observing students learning for my work. In this role, I learned how to read mundane everyday interactions, dialogue, and gestures and see them through multiple contexts and lenses.

# data[].attributes.body
In grad school currently, I am finding myself learning how to read critically and more skeptically. I find myself asking a lot more questions as I am reading research articles and theoretical pieces, which is personally very exciting. I feel that my literary skills of being able to read the world are growing stronger.